Thursday, December 6, 2012

Ryan and Rubio Are Strangely Silent About Both the Fiscal Cliff and the Conservative Purge

PPP just came out with a poll about the different contenders for the major party nominations in 2016. Ryan and Rubio are the two candidates most preferred by conservative Republican voters (Chris Christie wins "moderates") yet where are they with regards to one of the most important near-term issues facing this country today, the fiscal cliff? They both seem to be too busy giving speeches trying to rebrand themselves as inclusive and compassionate conservatives to bother actually fighting for our ideals. If they are truly trying to lead this country, shouldn't they start right now, when we actually need it? Shouldn't they have their own plans that don't include tax increases? My guess is that if one or both of them came out with a plan or plans for the fiscal cliff that doesn't involve higher taxes that they would be able to get Republicans to dump Boehner's festering turd of a plan. Instead, we have nothing. Pretty much just crickets and some campaigning for themselves. They are also completely silent on the conservative purge from Ryan's own Budget Committee (though it seems likely Ryan himself ok-ed the purge from the committee that he chairs, so it's not surprising he isn't commenting on that).

Rand Paul, on the other hand, is being far more hands on with the fiscal cliff issue and also made these comments about the purge on Peter Schiff's radio show:

We had a couple of congressmen who stood up and said you know what the Paul Ryan budget doesn't balance for 28 years, and so for voting against the Republican establishment they were purged... I guess it shows the true colors of people. I don't know if any of these people want to run for president, maybe they're going to have to explain why they wanted to purge people from their committees who believe in balancing the budget.

If Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio aren't willing to stand up for conservative principles from attacks from within the Republican Party, how can we possibly have faith that they will do so when there are attacks from without? I'm not that surprised by Paul Ryan, who I believe is over-rated given his horribly sucky budget plan but I am a little with Rubio who took on the establishment in the form of Charlie Crist in order to get elected in the first place. I guess now that he has Presidential aspirations, he is now far less willing to rock the boat and is likely to be a major disappointment going forward.